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People of the sea

The first people arrived in Australia and New Guinea more than 40,000 years ago – the beginning of human exploration of the Pacific Ocean. Many millennia would pass before anyone developed the knowledge and technology to journey further across the vast sea.

Then, about 5,000 years ago, seafaring peoples began to move eastwards, probably from South-east Asia. Over the next several thousand years, they gradually settled almost every habitable island of the Pacific. With them, they took their beliefs, cultural practices, languages, animals, and plants.

From these closely related peoples developed the many diverse, and interconnected, societies that live in the Pacific today.